Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
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The email address, LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
I keep trying to get away from this Blagojevich stuff because I have a fabulous stack of other stuff here, but it's difficult, folks, because the stuff just keeps being piled on.
Dick Durbin this afternoon in Chicago at a press conference.
This is a sad day for my state of Illinois.
Our system of justice gives anyone accused of a crime the right to defend himself in court, and Governor Blagojevich will have that opportunity.
But if the allegations, and I read them this morning, in the criminal complaint against Governor Blagojevich are proven true, he has clearly abused the public trust.
I think the Illinois General Assembly should enact a law as quickly as possible calling for a special election to fill the Senate vacancy of Barack Obama.
No appointment by this governor under these circumstances could produce a credible replacement.
Man, due process doesn't count anymore, even for one of their own guys.
It is amazing, ladies and gentlemen.
They've thrown Blagojevich under the bus as though he were a Republican here.
Normally, Democrats do stuff like this.
They circle the wagons.
But nobody's out circling the wagons around Blago today.
Now, even Durbin, he should have called him a Nazi thug or polepot type dictator thug or whatever to really add emphasis to this.
Again, ladies and gentlemen, another question here about Fitzgerald.
Now, Fitzgerald, because people are trying to understand why stop this?
We're in the middle of a crime spree.
We are in the middle of a crime spree, and the crime spree involves the selling of what?
The Senate seat currently belongs to Barack Obama.
We know that Obama had somebody in mind for the seat.
That person pulled themselves out of the running at a propitious time.
We also know that Pat Fitzgerald, who was the special prosecutor in the leak of the name Valerie Playme as some sort of a CIA James Bond, which was always a fraud, he did a two and a half year investigation even after he had his answer.
The name of the leaker was Richard Armitage.
Armitage is who leaked it to Bob Novak.
And yet Fitzgerald convened a two and a half year investigation and then got himself a process crime, Scooter Libby, perjury, and a jury convicted.
And that investigation went on and This one gets shut down in the middle of a corruption crime spree.
That's what Patrick Fitzgerald called it.
Now, we know this, ladies and gentlemen.
We know that for the past couple of weeks, Obama has had insertion teams all over various agencies of the government in advance of his inauguration.
This is part of the transition.
The Bush administration is participating in this.
And some of these people are showing up, State Department, the Justice Department, where Eric Holder will be the Attorney General.
And they are examining the way things are going.
They're familiarizing themselves with ongoing matters.
So an Obama insertion team in the Justice Department for a couple weeks now stumbles across what's happening here in Illinois with good old Governor Blago.
And then all of a sudden, Fitzgerald stops an ongoing crime spree in the middle of the crime spree.
Rush, are you saying that Obama people, a Justice Department, a transition team called Fitzgerald?
Ladies and gentlemen, don't put words in my mouth.
We're never going to have wiretaps on those kinds of phone calls.
But, I mean, look at two and two equals four, unless it's outcome-based education, in which case it equals whatever you want it to be.
To me, two and two equals four.
Now, another thing to keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, as we wade through this primordial muck that is Chicago politics, one of the things that new incoming presidents do is fire all of the sitting United States attorneys.
I think there are 93 of them, something like that.
Bill Clinton did this with one of the first things he did.
I mean, with the first week in office, canned them and put his own guys in there.
Standard operating procedure.
Although, when Bush replaced eight, Bush did not do this, by the way.
Bush, with a new tone, left a lot of Clinton U.S. attorneys in office, did not sweep them.
Only in his second term did he start replacing some.
And the Democrats tried to impeach the attorney general at the time, Gonzalez, for supposedly playing politics with the Justice Department.
And of course, the White House did not fire back, did not defend itself.
No reason to go over already trod ground.
However, what are the odds that the U.S. attorney in Chicago will be replaced by Barack Obama when he is inaugurated?
Can you just see the headline now?
Patrick Frederick Fitzgerald, he of the Scooter Libby conviction and the indictment of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich today was fired by incoming President Barack Obama and replaced by X. People say, wait a minute, Fitzgerald is fired?
Why, after he indicts Blagojevich, a Democrat, I don't care how tone deaf they are at Obamaville and they're not tone deaf.
That's not going to happen.
So he might fire 92 U.S. attorneys, but he's not going to fire 93 U.S. attorneys.
Now, it doesn't mean that Fitzgerald can't be elevated.
Doesn't mean that Fitzgerald can't resign on his own.
I mean, stranger things have happened.
But this is all just the timing of this and Fitzgerald making it a point today to say that Obama had nothing to do with this.
Not about the president elect.
I'm sure as things stand now, there wasn't.
I think it's part of why you shut down the ongoing corruption crime seat.
It's about his seat.
It was just yesterday, or maybe it was yesterday we were talking about kids and how pampered they are.
Oh, yeah, the economic story of parents very much concerned over whether to tell the kids the truth about our dire economic circumstances.
And I made mention of the fact, I had a story yesterday that in certain school districts, now they're getting rid of the word of the grade F and replacing it with H, grade held, not a W.
That reminds people of Bush.
It's H, grade held.
And this is in preparation for the student being able to hold on to his mortgage after not being able to pay for it.
No F, it's too humiliating.
And I made the point, well, we had to do something because we have to get rid of the red pencils.
Remember, we had to get rid of the red pencils because it was just, it was too intimidating for students to get their papers back graded and marked up with red.
From Sydney, Australia.
Teachers using red pen to mark students' work could be harming their psyche as the color is too aggressive, according to education strategeries drafted by an Australian state government.
The Good Mental Health Rocks Kit, which was distributed this month to about 30 schools in Queensland State, offers strategeries such as don't mark in red, which can be seen as aggressive.
Use a different color.
We are spreading our political correctness around the world.
Now, the sitcom continues, ladies and gentlemen.
Again, I express my frustration.
I cannot laugh.
Every story today has been worth a belly laugh.
And I still can't laugh.
From the UK, green campaigners call the police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve.
Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and other trees marked with notches for felling at a beauty spot in northern Poland.
But when officers followed a trail left by a tree which had been dragged away, they found a beaver dam across the river.
A police spokesman said the environmentalist wackos are feeling pretty stupid.
There's nothing more natural than a beaver.
Beavers cut down 20 trees.
They got a picture of a not.
They even put a notch.
You know, they put a notch in a tree so they can be pushed over.
And these wacko environmentalist nutcases walk through there and immediately think environmental destruction.
They thought they were hot on the trail of the culprit.
They find beavers.
Nothing more natural than a beaver.
Getting answers to my questions here very quickly, ladies and gentlemen.
I've been asking all day, why shut down an ongoing crime spree?
Turns out that Jack Connody of the Fox affiliate in Chicago, Fox TV Eyeball News, said this.
We did receive a tip this morning that perhaps all of this came together so quickly because Governor Blogojevich may have reached out to Ram Emmanuel, the president-elect's chief of staff, in attempting to leverage filling the Senate seat.
And it may have been Rah Emmanuel who tipped the scale and made this move as quickly as it did.
So there's the answer.
Rah Emmanuel, who is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow, when he was reached out to by Governor Blago.
So we can't have this and made a move to shut down the investigation to get it going or stop it or what have you because this is just this is this is just this.
We can't have this.
So that's what's going around Chicago now, that Rahm Emanuel was the white knight.
That saved the day.
Here is Doug in Binghamton, New York.
Doug, welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Hello.
Well, Rush.
I just want to make a comment real quick on how the governor of Illinois sounds remarkably like Gary Hart did when he was running around with his little monkey business.
He was up to in his, you know, come catch me type attitude the day before.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
And he's also got great hair.
He's got John Edwards kind of hair.
He's got Kennedy kind of hair, which, you know, just notice these things.
Like, you've noticed he sounds a little bit like Gary Hart.
I'm telling you, women today are noticing his hair.
Well, that's great.
All right.
Thanks, Doug.
Appreciate it.
Jackson, Michigan.
And welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
I want to thank you and Zycam for saving my book tour and my life.
Saving your book tour and your life, Zycam?
Absolutely.
How did it happen?
Well, I have sarcadosis, which is the same lung disease that Bernie Mac had when he died.
I also am the author of children's books.
And recently, I was on a two-week book tour of elementary schools when I started catching a cold.
I took a Zycam, which I have never taken in my life, and actually have always thought that your ads for it were really hooey.
I never believed that it would be cool.
Did you send me an email last night?
I sure did.
Because I read your email, and I was going to print it out and bring it in for the next time I had to record a Zycam commercial.
And when you used the word hooey, I remember reading your email because you thought that, and by the way, I was profoundly insulted.
Because here you are, a regular listener, telling me you think I'm lying to you about things.
And so you thought Zycam was a bunch of hooey.
I did.
I really did.
Until I needed it, and I used it because of my disease and my compromised immune system.
I cannot catch a cold.
And I go into elementary schools all the time to do presentations for my books.
And so I just, I want to say thank you.
I want to tell you how wrong I was and how much I appreciate the product.
I also have a lot of trouble with speaking for public, you know, public speaking.
I cough a lot because of my disease.
And in fact, right before I came on air with you, I took Zycam Cough Max, and that works just wonderfully.
Zycam Cough Max.
I did.
Well, I hope you took the daytime formula.
Absolutely.
So it wouldn't make you sleep.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've used it a lot for public speaking.
Well, that's just great.
I just have one question.
Uh-oh.
No, it's just.
No, it's.
I'm fearful of your question.
No, no, no, no, don't be fearful.
I mean, you think the product is hooey.
You hear me talk about Zycam.
And what do I say?
I say, if you think you're catching a cold, use it the minute you think so.
You've got to catch it early.
It may not stop it, but it'll certainly slow it down and shorten the duration.
Why did you try it if you thought it was hooey?
Because I was desperate.
I have never taken, I've never been away from home for two weeks.
And I had signed a contract to do a two-week book tour of elementary schools.
And I happened to hear you 48 hours before I was to leave on my book tour, and you were advertising it.
And I went to the store, and I thought, you know, this thing probably doesn't work.
I'm probably not going to need it.
But I took it anyway, and I'm really, really glad that I did.
I'd like you to allow me to return the favor.
I'd like to send you a signed copy of my children's book, Christmas Tree Farm, for your nieces and nephews.
Wow, that's very nice.
If you'll stay on the hold, Mr. Sturdley will give you the details on how to do this.
Okay, thanks so much, Rush.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
What it means is you never did think it was Hooi.
Because if you thought Zycam was Hui, you would have never even tried it.
Well, that's probably true.
Right.
Thank you so much, Rush.
Same here.
Appreciate it.
Moving on.
Kevin in South Fort Myers, Florida.
Nice to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Mega Dittos from sunny Southwest Florida, sir.
Appreciate that.
Quick question for you.
Ever since I heard you say you support the workers, but not the union, I've been hitting redial for about an hour and a half.
I wanted to know how you would perceive someone saying, I support the military man, the warfighter, but I don't support the war.
What is the difference between I support the worker but not the union and I support the military warfighter but not the war?
Well, to be correct, what they said was they support the troops, but not the mission.
Understood.
And I hear your point on unions being a Teamster for 10 years.
You're a Teamster?
I was, sir.
Yes, for 10 years, a UPS driver, and I saw some of the little local corruption, and I stood up for the first time.
See, this is the point.
This is the point.
I love what you do.
I depend on UPS.
Well, I don't know.
And I depend on FedEx.
And sometimes I depend on DHL.
I used to depend on the Flying Tigers.
I like the fact that you have get up and go.
I like the fact that you have initiative, that you're out there performing a service.
I love the work that you do.
I just don't like your union leaders.
I would have to say I agree with you because in my tenure, I filed 29 grievances and never lost.
And a good portion of them were to change contractual language for the next upcoming contract.
So it had no benefit to me other than me sticking my neck out for the little guy because the way they were collecting their union dues is the same across the board regardless of your pay rate.
And it was a violation of the contract because it was too hard to ride them out and do the math.
Nothing you can do about it.
They collect the maximum amount no matter how much money you make.
These guys make from $11 an hour to $25 an hour.
That's right.
They're not supposed to make more than twice their hourly rate, but everybody was paying the same maximum amount like they were making $44 an hour.
Yeah, if you go out and say something to the wrong person about it, you got more than a flat tire on your truck to look at.
Yeah, well, when people stood up and said, hey, we overpaid for the two years it took to get to the top pay scale, they said, okay, you have to come forward individually to request your money.
And you didn't do it because you wanted to live.
Back to your phone calls here in mere moments, ladies and gentlemen.
I've been trying.
I've been trying to get to the auto bailout stack.
And I'm still not going to be able to get the auto bailout stack, but there's major stuff happening there.
For example, I just received a note.
Automotive News Europe today is reporting that automakers, U.S. automakers, the big three, would have to give up lawsuits against California's law limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which would hand the environmentalist wackos a major victory.
Now, see, here's the thing is, if those lawsuits were successful, it would go a long way toward allowing the auto companies to make a comeback.
This is my point about this all along, not to absolve the auto companies of all blame here, but for crying out loud, they've had the federal government running their business for all these years anyway, and look what it's done to them.
They don't have the federal government to deal with when they're running a business elsewhere around the world.
And so they were suing environmentalist Wackos in California, and they're going to have to give up the lawsuits to accept the bailout.
And then Wall Street Journal: U.S. could take stake in Big Three.
Dingy Harry says, well, now we really don't want to use taxpayer money to own these companies, but we see we have really no choice.
ABC News is reporting the American people are opposed 54% to the auto bailout.
This is a deal that nobody wants except the unions and Obama, and therefore it will happen.
By the way, Change to Win, the union organization referenced in the bribery investigation of Governor Blago in Chicago, says it has had no contact with Blagojevich or federal investigators.
According to the federal criminal complaint filed today, Blago and his aides discussed gaining a high-paying job at Change to Win.
This is an offshoot of the service employees international union, high-paying job at Change to Win in exchange for making an Obama-friendly Senate appointment.
They didn't know Obama was president.
They had never heard of Blagojevich.
They didn't know anything about this.
This group just now found out that Obama was president.
Now, Blagojevich later seemed to grow cold on the idea because he wasn't sure the relatively new union organization would still be around at the end of his term, according to the complaint.
Now, the spokesman for Change to Win, you're going to get this guy's last name as the soap opera continues.
Pardon the sniffles.
His name is Greg Denier.
D-E-N-I-E-R.
The spokesman for Change to Win.
Greg Denier said no one at Change to Win had any involvement, discussion, or contact with the governor or his advisors or anyone representing him.
Damn it.
Yes, they're denying everything.
Denier is denying everything at Change to Win.
Denier added this: the notion of a job for the governor at Change to Win was a complete invention of the governor's office and his staff, and it has no basis in reality.
We have an executive director, said Denier.
We have a leadership council.
A notion that somehow the former governor of Illinois, not former yet, the notion that somehow the former governor of Illinois can simply step in and assume leadership of this organization on the face of it is implausible, said Denier.
The spokesman for Change to Win, Harvard University's largest faculty plans to freeze salaries for professors and non-union staff next year.
Again, this may shock you.
Let me read this again for you.
This is from Reuters.
Harvard University's largest faculty plans to freeze salaries for professors and non-union staff next year as the world's richest university grapples with a funding shortfall brought on by the financial crisis.
Now, this First place, they got nothing to worry about.
Obama's hiring all these people anyway to work for him in Washington.
Now, wait a second.
Wait a second.
A letter from deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to department heads said at least $105 million must be cut from the budget, which is strained by a projected 30% drop in the school's endowment in the year to June 30th.
Now, their endowment is down $8 billion to like $38 billion from $46 billion.
And because their endowments down to $38 billion, despite Obama's election.
$38 billion?
They're going to have to freeze.
What's the reserve for?
Obviously, this is a reserve.
People have reserves and they don't want to tap the reserves.
They want to go out and ask people to take pay cuts or ask other people for more money or whatever when they've got $38 billion.
Do you realize how small a percentage $105 million is of $38 billion?
So they're asking salaries, they're asking professors to accept freezes and their non-union staff to accept freezes.
I don't know how these professors are going to live on what they're currently making.
Do you realize the insult asking these professors to take this kind of hit?
You know it is bad, ladies and gentlemen.
When you read that the recession has hit the National Football League, the NFL said today it is cutting more than 10% of its headquarters staff in response to the downturn in the nation's economy.
The Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the cuts in a memo to league employees.
The NFL is eliminating about 150 of its staff of 1,100 in New York.
The NFL is eliminating some jobs at NFL Films in New Jersey and at their television and internet production facilities in Los Angeles.
Now, I, first place, ladies and gentlemen, I really apologize for this hacking cough and the sniffles.
I know it's very unprofessional, but it is what it is, and this is real radio.
Now, NFL Films, if there is, my personal opinion, if there is ever anything that should be insulated is NFL Films.
They don't have that many people working at NFL Films anyway.
It was started by a guy named Ed Sable, and it's run now by his son Steve Sable.
And then in full disclosure, I know Steve Sable.
The NFL owes as much to its current success and image to NFL films as it does to anything else.
It was NFL Films years ago who made football understandable, made it funny, illustrated, close up this game, put it to music, showcased with never-before-used camera angles of a football in flight, the absolute athleticism required, the beauty of this game.
NFL Films is just, they ought to be in the Hall of Fame.
Ed Sable ought to be in the Hall of Fame, and Steve ought to go in the Hall of Fame.
They're some of the most tireless supporters of the National Football League that you will ever run into.
And they don't have that many people to cut.
If I were people in the NFL, I wouldn't leave.
I would do a sit-in.
I would take my lead from these courageous union people in Chicago at the window factory who refuse to leave until they are paid their benefits, until they are paid their vacations.
The NFL has been symbolic of the wealth surrounding professional sports.
Players are going to make $4.5 billion alone this year.
But now the NFL joins the NBA, NASCAR, and the company that runs Major League Baseball's internet division in announcing layoffs.
You could just close down the Detroit Lions, close down the Cincinnati Bingles.
And you wouldn't have to cut anybody other than the players.
I think anybody who is laid off in an Obama recession should just refuse to leave.
And organize sit-ins, sit-ins for stability.
The hell with change.
This is not the change they bargain for.
What?
You mean you getting elected means I lose my gig?
Wrongo.
I'm sitting in for stability.
And by the way, Obama, IBD, Investors Business Daily, has a pretty good editorial today on Obama encouraging these people to sit in.
That's a violation of the law.
It's not their property.
They are not vacating this place.
It's not their property.
And Obama, who's a well-known street agitator, is illustrating his lack of understanding of what the presidency is all about.
You don't encourage people to break the law.
Of course, I know it doesn't matter what he says.
It's how he says it.
By the way, get ready for another bailout coming down the pike.
The battery business is about to be history.
Dying battery on your cell phone, dying battery on your iPod.
Usually it's a little inconvenient.
You got to plug it in.
You've got to recharge it.
But no longer research now shows that high-tech devices will be able to power themselves in the future by converting pressure waves in the air into energy.
No recharge needed.
This is going to be very, very difficult on battery makers.
We're getting this story well in advance of when batteries will become obsolete.
We need...
What's that going to do to these electric cars?
Quick, folks, what are the two most stolen cars in America?
According to Forbes.com, two most stolen cars in America.
If you said Escalade, you're right.
If you said Hummer, you're right.
SUVs.
Why?
Not because they can strip them and ship parts overseas.
It's because those are the cars people want.
They're General Motors products.
Escalade and the Hummer.
That's what people want.
Sorry, that's what people want.
What are we going to make for them?
A bunch of crap.
Well, yeah, crime will go down.
Who's going to want to steal crap?
By the way, NASCAR also having trouble sponsorships.
Economically stressed marketers not sponsoring the cars as much.
This is a bad thing, except there's always, see, we here at the EIB network, we always try to find the positive.
With fewer sponsors on NASCAR cars, we may now actually be able to see what color the cars are.
Rod Blagojevich, get this, wanted to shake down Warren Buffett.
I'm telling you, folks, there's something not mentally stable here.
Blagojevich and his inner circle were expansive in pondering just how they could leverage the Senate appointment for financial gain.
At one point, Blago floated the notion that Warren Buffett, noted Obama supporter, could somehow be brought into the deal.
In a November 11th conversation with John Harris, his chief of staff, Blago said that he could start a 501c4 political organization to extract money from Buffett, whom Blago called Obama's friend.
His chief of staff said, What, for you?
Blago said, Yeah.
The next day, Blagojevich again brought up the idea of creating a political entity suggesting Obama could get Buffett or Bill Gates to help underwrite it.
Such donors, the governor said, could put $10 to $15 million in it so I could advocate health care and other issues I care about and help them while I stay as governor.
Obama's advisor is a senator while I stay as governor.
Blagojevich proposed controlling the 501c4 through a board of directors and taking over the organization after leaving office.
Nancy Pelosi likes the idea of a car czar.
The car czar is part of the bailout.
Ladies and gentlemen, between Washington and the unions, and we love the workers, we support the workers.
We don't support the union.
Between the Washington people and the unions, there's not going to be any room for a profitable company here.
I think some auto company's next ad campaign ought to be running against Pelosi and Washington, not taking the bailout money, telling Congress we don't need any help from the same people who wrecked our economy.
We don't need help from the people who wrecked our company.
Think they can find an ad agency, come up with that campaign?
Hi, I'm so-and-so from the XYZ Motor Company, and we are not taking a bailout.
And furthermore, we don't want the people who wrecked your home mortgage to wreck our car company.
We don't want the people in charge of ruining the U.S. economy anywhere near our car company.
You think that company would start selling cars?
Guess who Pelosi wants as the cars are?
Paul Volcker.
When's the last time Paul Volcker was inside an assembly plant?
Ron Gettelfinger, the union guy, declined to say whether his union would demand a seat on GM's board in exchange for contract concessions.
This is also being proposed.
I predicted a union's going to end up owning these companies.
Before it's all said and done, the union's going to end up owning the companies.
The proposal gives the Carzar say-so over any major business decision by the automakers while they take federal aid.
The companies would have to open their books to the government, including informing the car czar of any transaction over $25 million or more.
Nancy Pelosi said these companies will accomplish nothing if executives were left to their own devices.
Now, I'm sorry, folks.
I know it's a sitcom.
We are being led by the genuinely insane.
Nancy Pelosi and a car czar, Paul Volcker, oversee every decision, have to approve any expenditure over $25 million.
The same people who gave us the mortgage crisis and the subprime crisis, same people who have given us the financial crisis and the lending crisis.
The same people who have, in large part, wrecked the auto industry, now want to run it.
Because Nancy Pelosi says executives, if left to their own devices, will destroy the car companies.
Lord, help us.
What if they do a special election for Obama's Senate seat?